Chapter III: BAB

THE next day being Saturday, there were no lessons to do, and Mrs. Richardson advised Claribel to spend the morning in unpacking and arranging her clothes.

"I shall not unpack my clothes," said Claribel, sullenly; "I am not going to stay here."

"Oh yes," said Mrs. Richardson, soothingly, but apparently not in the least alarmed; "this will be your home for the present. I hope you will find it a pleasant one, but of course that must depend very much on yourself. I shall expect you to put your clothes in order; or if you do not feel able, I will send some one to do it for you. Dress yourself neatly, and be ready for dinner at one. Saturday being a holiday, we dine earlier than on other days."

Claribel was a little awed. She had never met any one exactly like Mrs. Richardson. The principal was a small, delicate-looking lady, with fine features and beautiful soft hair, which was quite gray, though she did not look old. She spoke very gently and softly, but there was something in her voice which commanded attention and obedience. Claribel felt that, but she did not like to give up quite yet, so she answered shortly again:

"I shall not go down to dinner. I don't want to be stared at by all the girls as if I were a gorilla. If I have got to stay here, I will stay in my own room, whether I have anything to eat or not."

"Listen to me, Claribel," said Mrs. Richardson, laying her hand with a light but firm pressure on Claribel's arm; "you have come here to live because it has been thought best by those who have the care of you, and that you may acquire such an education as will make you a useful and happy woman. If you are good and obedient, and take pains to make yourself agreeable, you may be very happy here, as the other girls are; if you are disobedient and sullen, you will make yourself and us a great deal of trouble, and yet you will have to stay all the same. There is no help for that. You need not be afraid that the girls will stare at you or do anything else to annoy you. I don't wonder that you feel sadly about leaving home and coming among strangers, but you will soon feel at home here. Come, now, make up your mind to be pleasant and good, and all will be well. Do you like to read?"

"Yes, ma'am," answered Claribel, a little more graciously, for she was won in spite of herself. "I like it very much, but we had hardly any books at home. Priscilla used to buy all sorts of rubbishing novels when she went to Lumber City, but I couldn't bear them."

"I am glad to hear you say so," remarked Mrs. Richardson; "we will see if we can't find something you will like. We have a very fine library, and the girls read as much as they please."

"Priscilla said you wouldn't have anything but great, heavy, stupid books like Josephus and Rollin," said Claribel; "we had those books at home, but they were in such large volumes and such fine print that I couldn't read them. Once I found part of a beautiful story about a knight and some ladies who were taken prisoner by robbers and carried to a castle, and the castle was set on fire. Oh, it was lovely," said Claribel, warming up—"not a bit like the rubbish Priscilla is always reading; but I never could find any more of it."

Mrs. Richardson smiled: "I know the book you mean, and will find it for you in the library; it will come in nicely, for your history class are just at that point in their English history, and they have all been reading this book. Do you think, my dear, that you can unpack your clothes?"

"Oh yes, ma'am."

"Then I will leave you to yourself till dinner-time, and then send or come for you. Good-bye for the present."

Mrs. Richardson kissed Claribel and departed, leaving her in a curious state of mind. She felt herself entirely conquered, and yet she was not sorry to be conquered. Claribel was not at all deficient in strength of mind. She was capable of respect, and she felt that she had found some one worthy to be respected. She was delighted at the prospect of having plenty of books to read, and not displeased at the thought of acquiring a good education.

"I wonder if I could take drawing and painting lessons?" she said to herself. "I am sure I could learn to draw. I don't care so very much about music,—only singing,—but I should like to be a great artist and have my pictures admired all over the world. People would respect me then. I don't think I should dislike living here so much, only for the girls. I know they will laugh at me. But then, if I get on with my studies—and I can, I know—I will make them think I am somebody."

I once heard it remarked of a very vain man that he dreamed in the first person singular. Claribel certainly thought in the first person singular. She had got into the "contracting chamber" of Mrs. Charles's pretty allegory, and of course it contracted round her more and more. She considered everything and saw everything only as it affected herself. She was in prison—a very small, dark, and narrow prison, indeed—and it remained to be seen whether she was ever to get out of it.

Claribel unpacked her clothes and other possessions, feeling a certain pleasure in their freshness and prettiness, for Mr. Steel had thought it best that she should have an entirely new outfit of everything. She even felt a slight twinge of mortification as she took out her pretty writing-desk and dressing-case, and wished she had been a little more gracious to her guardian.

Mrs. Richardson herself came up for Claribel at dinner-time, and gave her a seat next herself. Percy and Tilly sat near her and welcomed her with smiles, for they were not disposed to bear any malice against the poor lame, sickly stranger. After dinner, she went to the library, and Miss Foster, the librarian, found her the volume she wanted.

"You can sit down and read here, or anywhere else you like," said Mrs. Richardson, "only you must be sure not to leave your book out of place. Carry it to your own room, and next Saturday bring it back here."

"But suppose I haven't finished it?" said Claribel.

"Oh, then you can take it again; but we wish to keep a register of all the books, so as to learn where they are."

"Don't you want to come out on the upper verandah?" asked Percy, who had also come for a book. "It is nice and shady, and there is such a beautiful view."

Claribel consented, and got through the afternoon without giving or taking any new offence.

"Isn't she queer?" said Percy to Flora after they had separated. "Do you think you shall be friends with her?"

"I never saw anybody like her," answered Flora. "She doesn't seem to think anybody but herself is of any consequence at all. Did you see how she went and took Eva's seat the minute she left it? And though Eva came back directly, Claribel never seemed to think of giving it up to her. If I had been Eva, I would have asked for it."

"No, you wouldn't," said Percy; "you would have done just as Eva did. But I suppose Claribel has been sick a good deal, and that does make people selfish sometimes—not always, though. Mamma was sick a great deal, and papa used to say she hadn't any self."

"Well, we won't judge in too much of a hurry," said Flora, sagely; "I dare say she will improve. I heard Mr. Hausen say she had had very few advantages."

For some days, matters went on with tolerable smoothness. Claribel was examined as to her studies, and to her own surprise was put into the same classes as Percy and Flora. This was rather a stretch on the part of the authorities, and Miss Reynolds warned Claribel that she would have to study hard to keep up. But Mr. Hausen thought it better she should do so than that she should be mortified by being classed with girls much younger than herself. Claribel would have resented the consideration if she had known of it, but she never thought of such a thing. She was allowed to begin drawing lessons directly, and showed a talent which surprised and delighted Mrs. Claxton, the teacher.

"You will make an artist if you only have perseverance enough," said she, "but you must make up your mind to work hard."

"I don't care how hard I work when the work is what I like," answered Claribel.

"I dare say. That is the case with most people," said Mrs. Claxton, smiling. "But if you mean to be an artist, you must learn to work hard at what you don't like."

One pleasant morning, Claribel was sitting busily studying her history lesson on the landing-place outside her room door. This same landing was rather a special place of attraction for the younger girls. It was broad and roomy. The stairs turned two different ways from it, and there was a low, shady window with a broad seat which was just over the outside door, which opened into the library. It chanced this morning that the wind blew into Claribel's window; and remembering that the one outside had a different exposure, she betook herself thither, and sitting down on the window-seat just mentioned, began studying once more. She was just trying to fix in her head the date of King John's death, when she heard voices below.

"Was it a three-legged precious, then, and did it want to improve its mind?" said a voice which Claribel recognized as Percy's.

"So it should, then, and I guess nobody will look down on it when it knows all about Anglo-Saxon and things!" added Flora, in a voice of exaggerated sympathy. "I guess Molly won't despise it any more, now that it improves its mind, if it is a three-legged old dear."

"I think it is just a shame that Mr. Hausen don't get the poor thing a cork leg," said Tilly's voice. "Let's subscribe our own money, girls, and buy one."

"What's a cork leg when one's tenderest affections are wounded and trampled on, and all that kind of thing?" said Percy. "Can cork legs bring balm to a heart lacerated by a fuzzy-tailed tyrant?"

Now, there was one little word in this sentence which might have done something toward explaining the mystery if Claribel had only attended to it. But she did not. She jumped at once to the conclusion that the girls meant her. When Mrs. Richardson came to her room to see why she did not come to dinner, she found Claribel in a frenzy of rage, sobbing, and actually screaming.

While her next-door neighbour, who had heard her cries, was trying to quiet her, or at least to find out what was the matter.

"I can't make anything of it," said she, in answer to Mrs. Richardson's question. "She won't do anything but scream and say she will go home."

Mrs. Richardson had no better success. And while she was trying to get something out of Claribel beside inarticulate shrieks, Mr. Hausen himself came up stairs, passing through the little crowd of girls which the noise had assembled on the landing-place. His first move was to send every one away but Mrs. Richardson and himself. His next was to lock the door.

"Stop crying, Claribel!" were his first words. "Be still this instant! Do you think we shall allow such a noise as that in the house? Be silent!"

Never had Claribel been so addressed before. Aunt Hepsey had had a great dread of these screaming fits, or "tantrums," as she called them, and would give way in everything to avoid them. But it was clear that Mr. Hausen was not the least frightened. On the contrary, after waiting a moment, he renewed his command, with still more authority, not to say sternness. Claribel was rather alarmed, and made such an effort to quiet herself as she had never done before in all her life.

"Now, if you will try to speak reasonably, we will learn the cause of all this disturbance," said Mr. Hausen, when she had in a measure succeeded; "but speak quietly, and let us have no screaming."

Claribel told her story—that the girls had been insulting her and making fun of her and calling her names under the window; that she always knew they would, and that it was twice as mean to do it as they had done as if they had spoken to her face.

"What girls, and how did they do it?" asked Mr. Hausen.

"It was Percy, and Tilly, and Flora, and Fanny Morey. I knew their voices, and they meant I should."

"Impossible!" said Mrs. Richardson. "There are no better girls in the school."

"Call them," said Mr. Hausen; "let us hear what they have to say."

The girls were called, and great was their astonishment at the passionate accusation brought against them. Tilly bluntly denied it.

"I never thought of such a thing," said she; "Claribel must be crazy, I think."

"What names did we call you, Claribel?" asked Percy.

"You—you said I was a three-legged precious," sobbed Claribel, "and you said I ought to have a cork log, and that I was trying to improve my mind, so that Molly Richardson shouldn't laugh at me."

The girls exchanged glances. Percy smiled, and the others laughed outright.

"Oh, Mr. Hausen, it was Bab," exclaimed Tilly. "Miss Foster had down that great book of English history prints and left it open on the desk, and we found Bab sitting on the table before it looking just as wise as if he were studying the pictures. Then somebody said he was trying to improve his mind, so that Molly wouldn't despise him—you know she does despise him—and that was all. We never thought of Claribel or knew she was there. A likely story," added Tilly, rather indignantly, "that we should make fun of any one for being lame."

Mr. Hausen smiled in his turn.

"I begin to see through the mystery," said he. "Tilly, you may go and bring Bab here if you can find him."

All waited in silence, the other girls glancing at each other and trying to suppress their smiles, and Claribel feeling an uncomfortable misgiving that she had been making herself ridiculous.

Presently, Tilly came back, carrying in her arms a big white and brindled cat, which she set down on the floor.

Bab had once been a handsome animal of his kind, and was still plump and in good condition, but by some unlucky accident he had lost one forepaw and a large part of his tail, so that he presented a very comical figure. Bab seemed no way displeased at finding himself the object of so much attention. He limped about from one to another, purring loudly; and at last coming to Claribel, and seeming to think her in need of special sympathy, he jumped into her lap, and rubbed his big head against her chin with a kind of cooing noise.

"Well, I declare! What a compliment!" said Tilly. "I never saw him go to a stranger before. I guess he knows that Claribel likes cats; don't you, Claribel?"

Claribel murmured some inarticulate response as she bent her head down and fondled the old cat. She saw through the whole mystery. Never in all her life had she felt so ashamed of herself.

"You see how it was," said Percy; "we always talk to Bab as though he had sense, though I do think he has 'less' sense than any cat I ever saw."

"You always will say that, and I don't think it is fair," remarked Fanny Morey; "anyhow, Claribel, we were talking to him, as Percy says, and laughing at the notion of his reading to improve his mind. You would have laughed too if you had seen him, he looked so wise. But it was funny you should think we meant you."

"Well, never mind," said Mr. Hausen; "Claribel won't think so again, I am sure. There! Run away, all of you; and if Miss Van Ness can go with you, you may take out the small boat and see how you can handle her."

"Shall I leave Pussy?" asked Tilly.

"Yes, please," answered Claribel. And then, making a heroic effort, she added, "I am sorry I was so silly and made such a fuss; I won't do it again."